“Mouse” remembered at prayer vigil as son, friend, protector

Maurice “Mouse-Loc” Streeter was only 27 when he was shot in a strip mall parking lot along Fayetteville Street.

Family and friends, including his mother, Gloria, visited that same parking lot Sunday night. They wept and lit candles. They showed a slideshow of Mouse, of him in a matching purple tie and cummerbund at barely 6 years old, of him as a grown man texting or getting his hair done.

The images of Mouse were bright and warm on the white sheet friends had taped up to the window of Gorilla Ink tattoo and piercing parlor. Even though he was broad-shouldered, a big guy, they say he was named Mouse for his soft voice.

His 9-year-old brother, Jahaad Eades, lowered the microphone to match his height, then spoke, his voice quiet in the night.

“I miss you, I miss the loud music coming from your car,” Eades said. “I miss the way we’d play fight. … I love you, and that’s the end.”

The vigil was organized by the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, and friends and family took turns at the microphone. A friend of the mother, Minister Annette Love, led the gathering of more than 70 people in prayer.

“We’re going to celebrate him with love, peace and respect,” Love said. “Every single one of us are hurting. It’s a time of unity, even now.”

One by one, his friends acknowledged that they were standing in the place where their brother got killed. “Roll in Peace,” their shirts read, with Mouse’s face imprinted on their chests.

Walter Chavis said his son was born a few days after Mouse was killed. He rolled up his sleeve, showing “Maurice” tattooed on his right arm. He named his son after him.

“We’re not born into a lifestyle of our choosing,” said another one of Mouse’s friends, Bartholomew Scott, who also goes by Thunda. “But we’re born to survive.” Some of these people have faced life sentences. Bullets. But these people are family. They’re built on a foundation of love and loyalty.

“Welcome to planet Earth,” Scott said. “This is the life we live, though. This is to Mouse-Loc.”

The group gathered around as hip-hop music blared from speakers, filling people’s chests with the strong bass. They passed out balloons, blue to white, and held the strings tight.

Then they let go, waved to the skies and said that Mouse was gone, but never forgotten.

Gloria watched the balloons go, at times wiping a few tears from her eyes and receiving hugs from her son’s friends. They were her family now.